1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for the computer-assisted determination of an optimum-fuel control of nozzles. Such a method can be used in particular for controlling the nozzles of a spacecraft, such as, e.g., a satellite, a space probe, a space station or the like.
2. Discussion of Background Information
A method for the optimum-fuel control of the attitude and nutation of a spinning spacecraft is known from U.S. Pat. No. 6,347,262. An error signal is hereby determined via a determination of spinning rates and spinning angles and a torque applied to the spacecraft according to the result for this error signal.
EP 0 977 687 B1 describes different possibilities for the optimum-fuel computer-assisted control of nozzles of a spacecraft. Mainly methods are described thereby that contain a simplex algorithm, whereby on the other hand it is already stated there that such a simplex algorithm is associated with a high expenditure of computation time. The method described within the scope of that invention uses a method that depends on the simplex algorithm and starts from the formation of a simplex table. A dual simplex algorithm is ultimately used there to form an optimum-fuel control vector. As an alternative possibility for determining an optimum-fuel control of nozzles, only a “table look-up” method is described in EP 0 977 687 B1, in which optimum-fuel nozzle arrangements are calculated and entered in a table, and a current control result is formed from these previously stored results for the respective current control case through the combination of stored results. However, it is disadvantageous that in general an actual optimum-fuel result is not found with this method.